The dance

ESTAMPIE is custom firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1, named after the estampie, a fast dance of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It turns the little synthesiser into a groovebox for lively mediæval music: tavern and court dances rather than the crypt, with plucked lutes and citoles, buzzing hurdy-gurdies, shawms and bagpipes over drones, frame drums, tabors and nakers, chant, and the church modes.

It is a fork of GHOULBOX by Jason Persinger, the dungeon-synth firmware, which is itself a fork of Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (Hügelton Instruments). Nearly everything underneath is their work.

Early work. Version 0.2.0 has the VELLUM look, the illuminated screens and a first set of mediæval sounds, scenes and drum kits; more sounds are on the way.

Ways in

• Play it in your browser The real firmware, compiled for the web: knobs, keys, screen and sound, nothing to install.
• Install it on your FM-1 Over USB from Chrome or Edge; save a backup first. The way back to official V15 is there too.
• Edit sounds and sequences From the computer once it's installed: presets, patterns, songs, samples and backups.
• Read the user guide From your first notes to every page and setting (adapted from GHOULBOX's guide).
• Download the firmware estampie-0.2.0.fwsc, 596 KB, for FM1Kit, FM-SWITCH or other installers. Its SHA-256: e94f2e09f904e02f831194afd581247d951c5f2d27b00e324eb9addc16905aa5

What it does

• Thirteen sound engines on four tracks: virtual analog, six-operator FM, phase distortion, chiptune, real recordings, sung vowels, three oscillators, a tonewheel organ, granular, physical models, GHOULBOX's hurdy-gurdy, noise and drums.
• A 64-step sequencer on every track, with an arpeggiator, chord keys, scales and mediæval temperaments (Pythagorean, meantone, just).
• Drones that keep sounding through the sequencer's rests, as a hurdy-gurdy's do while the wheel turns.
• Insert effects, chance, ratchets and conditional steps, Euclidean patterns, songs, MIDI learn and more, from Felucca.
• A screen like a manuscript page: parchment, iron-gall ink, vermilion rubrics and lapis.

With thanks

GHOULBOX

by Jason Persinger: the hurdy-gurdy, the old tunings, the drone latch, the browser synth and the guide this one is adapted from. Source, support it on Ko-fi.

Felucca

by Leo Kuroshita, Hügelton Instruments: the engines, sequencer, effects, editor, installer and tests, and the Felucca-Engines (MIT). Source.

And

Charles Vestal's X0X (the browser emulator's design and the second core), Kerem Kilic's Melodee (the chord readout), zednaked's Jangada and gospodindilly-ops (the second core), Versilian Studios' VSCO-2 and VCSL samples (CC0), and the fonts: IM Fell English, Alegreya Sans, Cinzel, Inter Tight and UnifrakturMaguntia (SIL OFL 1.1). The full list is in the licensing notes.